Captain America by Ed Brubaker vol. 3

Spoilers be damned!  Any story that involves Captain America getting his ass handed to him by Dennis “D-Man” Dunphy is automatically in the running for “worst story of the year” around here.  I don’t care how tragic his situation is, the character is so terminally lame that there’s no benefit for using him the way Brubaker does in this story.  People unfamiliar with him are going to go, “Who?” while the rest of us will be going, “Oh god, not HIM again!”  Of course, if you need a reminder about his awfulness as a character then Marvel has obliged by rounding out the collection with a reprint of his first appearance.  Everyone here would be better off picking up a copy of “The Pulse” vol. 3 to see Bendis and Michael Gaydos give us the best… well, only good use of the character in the past decade.

As for the story itself:   S.H.I.E.L.D.’s supervillain witness protection program has been compromised and it’s up to Cap and co. to clean up the mess.  If you can get past the whole D-Man bit, and the fact that this is YET ANOTHER Brubaker-written Cap story where the bad guys win, then you might be entertained.  At least Patch Zircher manages to come out of this unscathed thanks to the decent art he contributes.